


Blame It On The Neon

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Amputee Ben, Ben is Southern or something, Ben is basically Clyde Logan, Ben is missing an arm, Disabled Ben, F/M, I was forced to write this, Make of it what you will, Promiscuous Rey, Tagged for Clogan but he's called Ben, Underage Drinking, bar au, marine ben, sexually experienced Rey, veteran ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: Ben is an ex-marine, missing an arm and working in Lando's roadside bar. He doesn't smile, and he doesn't talk to people, but he watches Rey hustle men at pool four nights a week. In fact, he can't seem to stop watching her.
Relationships: Clyde Logan/Rey (Star Wars), Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 365





	Blame It On The Neon

Ben grips a glass between his prosthetic and his chest and works a cloth around it, his eyes on the girl. It’s a Tuesday, so it’s quiet in the bar. No one wants a drink, so he’s free to stare.

She comes in three or four nights a week, and always Friday and Saturday. She’s too old for high school, he’s pretty sure, but definitely too young to be drinking. Nobody gives a shit about that though. _Lando’s_ is a ramshackle wooden conversion, beams and planks ripe with splinters and the floor covered in sawdust and woodchips to soak up spilled drinks, sweat, and puke sometimes. It’s a roadside watering hole that contributes nothing but drunk-driving statistics.

It’s also the only place that would hire him after the sandbox.

Oh, his parents were eager to take him on, find him something, but he couldn’t do it. He can’t be around people who know him, he can’t bear cities, he hates loud noises. He doesn’t want to wear a suit or smile or be polite, or shake fucking hands. He doesn’t want to comb his hair or shave. He just wants to crawl into a hole and disappear. He just wants to fucking _be_.

Lando, the owner, is a friend of his dad’s from the old days, and Ben’s ‘uncle’ (read: _not_ his uncle). He’s a man who’s more interested in profit than business. He’s a crook, in other words. He runs small-time poker games, takes bets, and he holds onto things that shouldn’t be held onto, for a price. Ben’s job is to just put shit in the back and not talk about it. Easy, since Ben doesn’t talk to anyone. Lando is a dying breed of gentleman rogue, charming and easy, so he was perfectly happy to take on his buddy’s ex-marine, one-armed, washed-up, traumatised hulk of a half-mute son. Ben pulls pints, pours shots, sweeps floors, wipes spills, all in the middle of nowhere, and that suits him just fine.

But lately, there’s the girl.

Lando has a policy of letting hot girls drink as long as they’re fuckable, which Ben takes to mean legal, AKA 18. Lando looks the other way for a 17-year-old, but Ben makes sure they’ve graduated high school. He’s seen too much bad shit happen to fucking kids that if he can stop these girls, he will.

This one fits the bill. She’s definitely hot, definitely not in high school, not with the way she moves. The skin she shows doesn’t bother her, in fact, she does it on purpose, working the men in the room like she’s conducting an orchestra.

He knows her name. Rey. He’s heard other men say it as they call out to her from the jukebox or the bar, asking what she wants, how they can spend their money on her, but in his head she’s just ‘the girl’, as if there’s only one. He doesn’t know who she is or where she comes from. There’s nowhere around _Lando’s_ and she always comes in alone, without adding a vehicle to the parking lot. She never leaves alone. She’s not in school and Ben suspects she doesn’t have a job from the pattern of her visits to the bar. School nights don’t stop her. She doesn’t react to any of the strippers like she knows them. So yeah, he doesn’t know who the fuck she is or where she comes from. She just drifts in with the dusk like a landlocked siren, come to lead men to ruin.

She doesn’t buy drinks, men buy them for her. Business is always good when she’s in. That’s why Lando has his policy for hot girls, they keep the booze flowing, and Ben wishes it wasn’t that simple but it is.

He’s never spoken to her. She twinkles at him sometimes. That’s what he calls it, when she ropes them in. She never searches for a target, the sucker just turns around and she’s already watching him, and then that _smile_. Sometimes it’s broad and almost childlike, as if she’s really, genuinely happy to see you. Sometimes it’s more adult than that, a speculative proposal, ‘fancy a go?’. Ben doesn’t react. He’s not going to empty his wallet for her, so what’s the point? When he stares back blankly the first time, she looks a little shaken before she turns away, and he realises too late maybe that was creepy, to be so obviously watching her and then not acknowledge her at all. She probably sees him as some kind of Frankenstein’s monster anyway, she’s so young and perfect, and he’s so big and… made up of ill-fitting parts.

But he’s the only constant in this place, so she looks to him every now and then when business is slow and she’s got nothing on her hook. These days when she smiles and he fails to smile back, that skill lost to him, she just laughs like it’s a joke he’s telling, like he’s funny. Then she turns around and gets back to reeling them in.

Her game is pool, mostly. If a guy demands darts, she’ll play darts, but pool is her trade. Pool allows her to lean over the table so her shorts ride over her ass, flashing the bar. Ben’s mother would say you could see what she had for dinner, which is a nasty phrase now Ben thinks about it. He can’t pretend the sight does nothing for him, this girl with her teased and crimped hair, her thick eyeliner and dazzling smile like everyone in the world is already her friend. Tonight she’s in a red crop top, and the shorts are black, and he’s surprised by the muscle he can see in her stomach. She’s thin in the way people who don’t eat enough are thin, but she’s just started down that road so it’s not obvious, it’s not off-putting, like a junkie. She’s not a junkie, her teeth are too good.

He’s watched her game so many nights now he can time it as well as she can. She comes in when things are slow, and plays a few lazy games by herself, like she’s practicing. She rarely sinks a single ball at this stage. Men will come over, touch her back when she’s bending over the cue, offer her a drink, and it’s off to the races. She gets away with it because she charms the whole bar. Her guys switch out a handful of times over the course of the night, and sometimes she dances, so it’s not obvious that she’s there for the table. Nobody loses too much money, and most guys walk away considering fifty bucks a fair price for a night in her company, and she finishes with a thick roll of twenties in her pocket. Once she gets a little cash, she uses her winnings to buy drinks, just to keep everyone happy, and drunk. She sends a sap to Ben with a little secretive whisper and subtle pout because, oh no, she doesn’t have her ID and the bartender looks _so mean_.

Ben pours a tray’s worth of weak piss into pint glasses and keeps the change, and she sends him a wink if nobody’s looking.

She’ll move on soon. She’ll have too, before she burns through the whole clientele and people stop being so friendly. Maybe she’ll hitchhike somewhere better.

She wears cowboy boots, and he might think they were an affectation if they weren’t so old. Her country music knowledge is shit, she doesn’t recognise anything in the juke, though she dances anyway with her arms over her head and her eyes closed, her hips swinging and her ribs showing.

A guy at the end of the bar taps his glass on the wood and Ben gets the whiskey bottle to pour him another. When he comes back, he helps himself to some peanuts from the bag, not the dish. He wouldn’t touch peanuts from the dish after this lot have got their hands on them.

The night goes on, and the girl works the table, but interestingly, the men are not biting. She can’t keep one more than a couple of games, though they’re nice about it. They’ve just been taken for her ride before, and it’s still three days ‘til payday, and the bar is frankly sedate. There aren’t many people, and the ones that are there are broke. The jukebox has been booked out with slow songs, nothing she can shake her hair too, so rather than stand alone and obviously in wait, she comes over to him.

She leans on the bar in such a way that he knows her butt is sticking out and on show. She props her chin up on one hand, and smiles at him. For a moment, he feels the fingers of both hands flutter nervously, but it’s only his right. He looks for a bottle, a glass.

“Hey.”

He looks at her like a deer in headlights.

“What’s your name?”

His name he can do. Should he? He has these fears now, about giving out facts about himself that would let people _find him_ , even though he knows, the therapist at the VA has told him, nobody is after him. He reminds himself he is nobody, not a target, swallows, and says “Ben.”

“Hi, Ben.” She twinkles. She smiles until her cheeks bunch up under her eyes, somehow making them catch the light even more. All things aside, if she wasn’t doing this, she could sell toothpaste, her teeth are so white and straight, not like his.

His hand looks for a bottle, a glass.

She doesn’t order anything. He knows why she’s there. He’s her last resort, a captive audience. He can be her prop, at least, helping her to look innocent until the next mark comes along. And if she can empty his wallet, then so much the better, but Ben doesn’t have his wallet on him, it’s upstairs in the room he sleeps in over the bar, and he’s not taking money out of the register for her.

Eventually he can’t take it, the silence, her expectant, twinkling look. It’s like she’s making fun of him, almost. He knows he needs a haircut, not to mention a new fucking arm. He knows he’s gone up two shirt-sizes since he came home. She doesn’t need to fucking point it out by looking like that and twinkling.

“Getcha anything?” he mumbles, looking down at his chopping block, knife, and limes.

“Oh… What would you recommend?” she says, like this is fucking _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ or something.

He scowls down at the chopping board. “You don’t want a drink, I got nothing for you.” His hand flexes, the prosthetic does nothing, posed as usual at 130 degrees.

She looks almost surprised, almost offended, but then it’s buried again under charm. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say. You know, I heard you can make a martini with one hand. Can you?”

He looks at her again. He can. He learned when his dad told him he was going to ask Lando for this job. He spent hours in his room practicing. He wanted to prove he could do it, to himself and to Lando. He wanted to reassure himself that he wouldn’t be a total charity case, that he could in fact be useful. Then nobody ever asked him to make a martini.

Until now.

He hesitates. If she wants a martini, he’ll make her a fucking martini, but he’s not doing it just for a circus trick. “You gonna drink it?”

“Sure, I’ll drink it!” she says, rearing back slightly as if he’s surprised her again. She pulls out her roll of bills and slaps a five on the counter, so he drags himself off to gather what he needs.

It’s slow, and he doesn’t like doing it because it requires focus and he prefers to be numb, but he makes the martini right in front of her where she can watch. He puts the five in the register and gives her the change, but she leaves it on the bar like she doesn’t notice. She picks up the delicate glass and spins it by its stem, watching it catch the blue from the neon Pabst logo burning behind Ben.

“I’ve never had a martini before. Are they nice?”

He shrugs.

She takes a sip, but gives no indication of whether or not she likes it, and Ben is weirdly disappointed. She puts the glass back down on the bar, leaving her fingers on the base.

“So, Ben…” she starts. “What’s your story?”

He stares for a moment too long, then shakes his head.

“Come on, everybody’s got a story.”

“You?” he asks, trying to sound disinterested as he nervously starts wiping the counter down.

“Me? Oh, I’m a princess. Daddy was a country music star with rhinestones on his hat, and Mamma was royalty from somewhere grand. She fell in love but kept her identity a secret, you see, and when her parents found out about me they made her give me up. The palace guards ripped me from her arms, it was all very dramatic but she did love me so. Daddy never knew about me, but he was never the same after Mamma went home, of course. His songs are sadder now, even the happy ones.”

Ben stares at her, but nothing in her face gives away that she doesn’t believe every single word. She doesn’t, she can’t, but she’s a very good liar.

“So come on, I’ve told you mine, now you have to tell me yours, it’s only polite.”

This girl’s crazy… and hurt. Any fool could see that. To refuse to play along would be a blow to her, he might as well smack her teeth out of her face. He clears his throat, thinking. He isn’t going to tell the truth, of course, but… What story could he tell? What would he have _liked_ to have led him here?

He points at his prosthetic. “Bear. Saving kids from a bear.”

Rey laughs, twinkling, _sparkling_ , and props her head against her hand, her fingers curling against her temple. “Very brave.”

He nods.

She reaches out and touches her fingers to his good arm through his sleeve. “I like heroes.” She bites her lip and gives him the eye.

He looks away. “You’ve got customers,” he says, subtly tilting his head at the pool table where three guys are setting up.

She looks. “Oh!” She downs the rest of the martini. “Thanks.” She leaves him with a wink and a swing of her hips.

It’s not her night.

She keeps trying, keeps drinking, but as people go home and the place empties, she’s drunk and stumbling in her cowboy boots. It gets to be closing time, and he’s still watching her as he grabs the broom to sweep the wet sawdust and wood shavings up.

As soon as he comes out from the bar, it’s like he’s entered her territory, sprung her trap. She smiles at him, but it’s dozy and doesn’t have the effect she thinks it does. She slinks over to him, catching herself against his chest.

“You play?” she asks, tipping her head at the table.

Ben shakes his head.

“Come on…” she wheedles like only drunk people do. Her make-up is smudged.

“You need to get home.”

She shakes her head. “Play with me, one game.”

“Don’t have any money.”

“Did I say money? I just want a game.”

He looks at her. The truth is, he can still play. Nowhere near as well as he used to, but he can do it, and… he kind of wants to. He wants to see her at the table from a different point of view. He wants to see what the other men see, as if he was normal, as if she saw him as a worthy mark.

He leans the broom against the bar and walks over to rack up. “You play properly, no hustling. I wanna see how good you are, or I ain’t playing.”

She gives him a saucy salute, whipping her fingers out from her forehead. “Yes, sir. You break.”

He arranges the posable fingers of his prosthetic to prop up the cue, then takes the longest and heaviest of their old and chipped cues. He lies his prosthetic on the table, notches the cue, and breaks, pulling away quickly. The cue ball slams into the others with a loud crack and they scatter, bouncing off the bumpers and all around. Two of them go in, and when he looks at Rey, she looks surprised, and impressed, and a glimmer of something else, something more animal. She’s competitive, he thinks, with an opponent who can actually play at her level.

He pots three more.

She pots five in a row likes it’s nothing. When she aims, she’s steady and clear-eyed.

“You playing me?”

She shrugs and leans on her cue. “I can still play when I’m drunk.”

He gets his next two but misses on the black.

She cleans the table. The game is over in two rounds, and probably took less than five minutes. He’s disappointed, but he won’t let her rack again. He said one game and he’s sticking to that, or before he knows it she’ll be ‘making it more interesting’ and that’ll be his pay gone. He goes back to sweeping.

“You need to get on home now. We’re closing.”

She goes to sit at the bar, crosses her long legs. “Would you believe me if I said I have nowhere to go?”

He pauses in his sweeping. It’s true this is the first time he’s seen her get left behind. Normally she finds someone to take her home with them. But the bar isn’t a shelter, it isn’t a charity.

(Of course it is, he thinks, or what is he doing there?)

He doesn’t say anything, ignores her, lets the rasp of the broom speak for him.

“You got a place?” she asks, her voice light and innocent, and obvious.

Oh, no. No way. This is not happening. He’s not getting suckered in by her.

After another minute’s silence, she gets up and goes behind the bar, and Ben hears a bottle open but he doesn’t look up. He just sweeps all the shit into a pile, the pile into a trash bag, then gets a rag to wipe the tables down. It takes him twenty, thirty minutes, easy, and she’s quiet the whole time. By the time he finishes and turns around, he finds out why. She’s asleep on the bar, a bottle of JD uncapped beside her.

He huffs, scowls. Did she do that on purpose so he’d have to take care of her? Did she think he’d let her just stay the night in the bar? He walks over to lock the cash drawer in the safe, then turn off the lights.

He shakes her. “Hey.”

She groans, blinks, and passes out again.

“Hey! Girl! You ain’t sleeping here!” He shakes her again.

“Stop.” She pushes at his hand.

He stares at her, puts his hand on his hip. “I ain’t carrying you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he mumbles. “Only got one damn arm.”

He stares at her for another minute. If he leaves her here, she’ll strip the place when she wakes up and Lando will can him for sure. He thinks about the room he sleeps in upstairs, the shitty cot and ragged blanket, but maybe she’s not too fussy, since she’s trying to sleep on a barstool.

Tentatively, changing his mind about four times on the way, he reaches for her wrist and ducks under her arm, lifting her off the barstool and pressing his prosthetic to her waist. She gives a girly grunt of alarm, her eyes flying open as she falls into his side, catching herself with her other hand against his ribs.

“Wha’ you…?”

“Need you to walk, okay?” he mumbles into his hair which has fallen between them, mercifully. His cheeks feel warm and he wishes he could feel her ribs under his fake hand.

“Can’t go with _you_ ,” she objects, pushing at him.

 _Then why was she asking about his place?_ he complains in his mind. Now is not the time for her to be difficult.

“Why not?”

She gurgles something that eventually turns into “Big man.”

Oh, right. So she has the brains not to go off with strange men when she’s fall-down drunk, but not enough to not get that drunk in the first place.

“I only got one arm, girl, what am I gonna do to you?” he says gruffly.

She just moans in complaint.

“Look.” He unwinds her arm from his shoulders and tries to get her back on the stool but she falls on her butt at his feet instead. He just shakes his head as he pushes up his sleeve, reaches underneath to the straps of his prosthetic. He takes it off and lays it on the bar. The place is locked up so no one will get to it. “How ‘bout now?” he says, offering his lop-sided self for her consideration. She squints up from the floor.

He sighs and reaches down to get her up again. This time when he puts her arm over his shoulders, he has to steady her with his stump, the little bit he has left at the base of his elbow, and now he _can_ feel her ribs, sort of.

“Don’t hurt me,” she slurs as he walks them to the door that leads to the stairs.

He doesn’t think it needs a response, but still he whispers. “Ain’t gonna.”

The stairs are narrow and it’s a struggle for both of them, especially with her tripping over her feet. They’re halfway up the stairs when she throws up. He just has to stand there and let it happen, thinking about how he’s going to have to come back and clean it up, but he’s not going to be sleeping well that night anyway since he’s giving her his bed. She doesn’t get it on her clothes, she’s got pretty good aim, but it’s in her hair. She dribbles pathetically, and he sighs. When she’s done, they continue on up.

In his room, he slings her on the bed. He tries to let her down gently, but he drops her the last half. His room is tidy, military. He pulls off her boots. She’s not wearing socks, but she’s got dark pink polish on her toes. Then he rolls her onto her side and puts the blanket on her. After that, he stares at her a moment more.

Then he goes to clean the stairs and bring a bowl up from the kitchen for her to puke in if she needs to.

When he’s finally done for the night, he takes off his boots and puts them on the floor next to his head, rolls his flannel shirt into a pillow, and lies down on the floor. He’s slept in worse places in the army, and this is almost nostalgic. He makes sure his long sleeved thermal covers his stump, then goes to sleep.

He is woken in the night by her puking into the bowl, but at least she doesn’t hit him with it, then she collapses with a groan. He goes to empty the bowl in the bathroom and rinse it out. Then goes back to sleep.

He wakes first, and when he sits up and checks on her, she has curled into a tight ball on her side, her brow furrowed in distress, like she is cold or in pain. He hasn’t got another blanket, so he gets his coat out and opens it over her. The little ball of her fits under it completely, and it gives him a painful feeling in his chest. She looks little, and young, and hurt. He kind of wants to sit beside her and rub her back, for comfort and warmth, but he reminds himself that she doesn’t want him touching her.

He gets her a bottle of water and some aspirin, watching her face in case she wakes up when he leaves them beside her, but she doesn’t. He goes for a piss, then goes to the kitchen, which is really just a corner of the room with a counter and a sink, with a mini-fridge crammed underneath and a hotplate and a microwave. He makes coffee, and starts on scrambled eggs and toast.

He hears her stir as he’s plating up, and when he brings her hers she’s drinking the water and the pills are gone. The blanket is in her lap, his coat pushed to the wall. She looks rough as fuck, but sober, and scared. She takes the plate and the coffee.

At first she can’t look at him, but when he’s been eating for a minute, she does. Her hand comes out towards his head, and he flinches away, startled.

“Your hair,” she explains, her voice rough. “It’s big.”

What’s he supposed to say to that? He drinks some coffee.

“Did we…?”

He shakes his head.

Another moment passes, and then she gives him a quiet “Thanks,” and starts eating.

He finishes before her and takes his plate to the sink, pouring more coffee and bringing the pot back for her. As he tops her up, he has to ask, “You always sleep curled up like that? I never seen anybody sleep like that.”

He keeps his eyes on her mug, but in his peripheral vision, she looks away, almost guilty. “How am I supposed to know how I sleep?” she says, defensive.

Fair enough. None of his business anyway. When he sits back down, he puts his back to the wall so he is not facing her.

“Is this where you sleep?”

Hot embarrassment prickles at him and his back and shoulders tense up. “Don’t think you sleeping here again,” he grumbles. “You forced me by drinking so damn much you passed out. Next time I’m putting you outside.”

There’s a pause, but she says “Understood. Thanks.”

But it’s eating at him. “You really got nowhere to go? No roof?”

She shakes her head.

“Then what the fuck you doing here? What do you do with the money you make hustling pool?”

“There’s nowhere for me to go.”

“There’s a motel further down the road.”

“I can’t get there.”

“You can’t get a ride?”

“If I can’t walk there, I can’t get back here.”

“And why the fuck you wanna come back here?”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

He might have been able to answer, but at that moment she smiles, happy just at the thought of this person, and he feels like shit all over again. Somebody matters to her. She’s not alone like he is. So he just grunts and looks away.

She puts her plate on the cot beside her. “Can I use your bathroom?”

He points her in the right direction, and when she stands her clothes are all askew. Her black miniskirt has ridden up and he gets a glimpse of off-white panties, maybe washed with something blue once, and her tit is almost falling out of her red top. She straightens it all out without shame, and wobbles away on stiff legs that loosen up by the time she reaches the door.

He cleans up her plate and mug and listens to the water run. She’s taking a shower, he realises, and he wonders if he has time to change his underwear before she gets back, but decides not to risk her walking in on him, so he just stands, awkward in his own bedroom, until she comes back. Her face is clean and he startles at the sight of freckles, the smudgy rings around her eyes gone too, and her hair is swept back and dripping.

She puts her boots on. “Thanks for letting me sleep here. I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do,” she says, smiling politely.

 _No I don’t_ , he thinks, but he grabs his keys and lets her out downstairs. He locks up again and goes back upstairs to shower and change.

She doesn’t stop coming to the bar. He doesn’t stop staring at her. She works people at the pool table. She doesn’t ask to sleep in his bed again. Nobody comes for her.

Weeks later, Ben is surprised to see Lando walk in. He’s smiling as always, but he doesn’t come to the bar to see Ben, instead he heads straight for the pool table. He’s wearing a silk shirt with a lurid pattern, cream pants that are too tight, and gold chain. Ben can’t say he pulls it off exactly, but he manages to make it look modern and not Seventies.

Ben watches as Lando leans against the table, facing Rey. Ben listens carefully, ignoring anyone who wants a drink.

“Hey, lady. I hear you’re pretty good at pool.”

Rey doesn’t know who he is, Ben can tell by the way her face lights up like she’s happy to be approached, but as she takes him in she stiffens a little. She can smell that he’s a shark like her. She shrugs playfully. “Some people say. Why, you want a game?”

“No, honey. See, this is my establishment here, and I’ve been getting some complaints.”

“Complaints?” Rey asks innocently with the perfect confused frown and tilt of her head.

Lando leans closer. “Yeah… See, the only game here should be _mine_.”

At the edge of threat in his voice, Ben calls out “Lando!” He walks out from behind the bar, tipping his head as he holds the door to the backroom open. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s doing something. Lando looks confused, glances back at Rey, but he joins Ben in the back.

“Let her off,” Ben says, his head bowed as he tries to figure out just what the fuck he is doing.

“Let her off?”

Ben nods.

“Why?”

Ben searches for the words. “She ain’t doing any harm. The men like her. They buy drinks. She sells a lot of drinks.”

“So you know what she’s doing? And you didn’t stop her? Or tell me?”

“She doesn’t take much in a night. No one ever gets mad over it.”

Lando folds his arms and cocks his hip as he studies Ben. “Has she got to you too, son? You’re soft on her?”

Ben shakes his head, a lie and he knows it.

Lando sighs, and reaches out to cup Ben’s elbow where his prosthetic is strapped. “My boy… She’s a grifter. Maybe a good one, but she’s playing you.”

“I ain’t never give her a dollar,” Ben insists.

“You’re giving her a place to work her trade, that’s valuable too, of course she’s keeping you sweet.”

“Ain’t like that,” Ben says, shaking his head, refusing to believe it. “She don’t even talk to me.”

“But she gives a good show, doesn’t she? I saw those little shorts, bet you can see everything from the bar. I’ve met her type before. She knows what she’s got and how to use it.”

“She don’t use it on me.” Ben doesn’t want to admit that, his tongue thick in his mouth.

“Ben, it’s bad for business. If she starts a fight, are _you_ going to take care of it? I don’t need that kind of bad feeling here.”

“She ain’t got nowhere to go,” he begs, or almost begs.

“That’s not our problem.”

“You took me on.”

“You’re Han’s son.”

“Well, she- That ain’t fair. She ain’t doing any harm!”

“This isn’t a charity, it’s a business.”

“Then take a cut!” Ben pants, feeling like a light has just come on. “Take a cut.”

He can see the speculative look in Lando’s face. He’s considering it. “You think she’d go for that?”

“If she doesn’t… Take it out of my pay.”

Lando stiffens and raises an eyebrow, staring at Ben, but Ben doesn’t buckle.

“You’re sure about that?”

He nods, decided. “I don’t pay rent, I don’t have a car. Is ten percent enough?”

Lando studies him, and Ben can see the conflict between profit, and stiffing his friend’s crippled son. In the end, profit wins, and Lando relaxes. “You better start fucking her after this, I swear,” he says, and then he whirls out of the door.

When Ben edges back into the bar, Lando is talking to Rey, who is glancing at him and nodding. Ben serves some drinks to keep from watching, and then Lando is gone again. Ben is nervous, expecting Rey to come and say something to him, but she doesn’t, and the night passes just like any other.

Only, Rey stays behind. He watches her decline invitations from her evening’s victims, then she stays and sits on the pool table and swings her feet. She watches him and his skin tickles under his collar but he refuses to scratch.

By two AM, everyone else is gone and Ben closes up, putting the cash in the safe and locking the front door. He doesn’t speak to her as he starts sweeping.

When he’s over by the booths, she springs off the table, her Cuban heels sounding on the floorboards. Ben keeps his head down until she pushes him, toppling him into the booth. The table is bolted down, but he’s sat at the edge, his legs out. She bends over him, her hands suddenly on his thighs, squeezing and stroking.

“That was a nice thing you did,” she purrs into his face, and Ben is too surprised to answer or push her away. She sinks to her knees between his legs, and Ben gulps audibly. She’s smiling when she reaches for his belt. Ben has one arm on the table and one on the back of the booth. All he can do is watch, his lips parted dumbly, as she rubs her palm against his zipper then pulls it down, opening his jeans and pulling his cock out without ceremony.

Ben is shocked to see it just _out_ there so suddenly. He hasn’t had a woman touch him since he lost his arm, and he’s not even hard.

“I-I-I didn’t… for this…”

“Aw, I know… but one good turn deserves another.” Rey winks at him, tucks her hair behind her ears, and lowers her head into his lap, her crown nudging his stomach. She takes almost his whole cock immediately, and Ben stiffens and shouts in response, he can’t help it. Everything is suddenly so hot, and so wet, and she is _licking_ him, rolling her tongue under his cock as it grows in her mouth so fast it _hurts_. Ben can’t catch his breath.

Rey is good at this, quick and efficient and impersonal in a way that makes Ben think she’s done this a lot. He knows that, he supposes. He’s always known she’s probably sleeping with at least the majority of the men she goes home with. He’s never cared, and even now he just feels… lucky, that her attention has fallen on him for a minute.

When he’s too big to fit in her mouth, she leans back and strokes him to full hardness, then pulls a condom from her pocket and dresses him quickly. Ben is belatedly grateful that she thought of that. He’s been deployed after all, and to a lot of brothels, so neither of them could make a convincing argument for being certain they’re clean. 

Then she is sucking him with quick movements, her mouth chased by her twisting hand, and it’s the best blowjob of his life. He watches and groans, long and loud. It’s too much too soon. He hasn’t even kissed a woman in years, and now this? But he’s not complaining, not at all. Rey, this strange girl, is a god-send.

He acclimatises a little, enough to move his hand cautiously to her head, petting her hair, and when she feels him there she glances up at him and somehow manages to smile with her eyes before refocusing on sucking him off.

 _She’s beautiful_ , he thinks. _Perfect_ , _strange girl_.

He wants to make it last, he really does, but he’s out of practice, and soon he is gripping her shoulder and groaning out in warning. Rey pulls off him with a grin, leaving him blinking and stunned as she stands up and twinkles at him, shimmying out of her shorts and underwear. She doesn’t hesitate to press her knee between his hip and the booth, the other foot having to stay on the floor as she splits her pink pussy over his cock. She’s wet but he definitely gets the impression she’s forcing him in, and before she reaches the bottom she’s grunting and throwing her head back. “God, you’re fucking huge.”

He just whimpers inarticulately. His dick is being squeezed half to death and it feels _amazing_ , and he’s definitely going to come too soon, and why is she doing this? She starts to ride him and he puts his hand on her waist and watches and tries to focus on his breath and not come but he doesn’t even make it a dozen thrusts before his spine is stiffening and he’s coming- coming-

He groans, his head rolling on his neck. She’s panting, smiling like she’s pleased with herself, the barest sheen of sweat between her tits. She didn’t come, and he doesn’t think she ever expected to. He holds her to him while he catches his breath, but she only gives him a few seconds before she wriggles out of his arms and backs off, efficiently stripping his cock of the condom and walking across the bar to throw it away. He watches her perfect ass when she hops up to reach over the bar counter.

When she comes back for her shorts, he catches her wrist, staying her. She looks surprised, but she waits as he strips out of his flannel and lays it on the table. He does up his pants, stands, then bends to pick her up with his arm around her waist. She squeaks, as if he is being too free with her, but he sits her bare ass on his shirt and slides back into the booth, ready to eat. He pulls her thighs apart and presses his open mouth to her pussy with all the clinical efficiency she had shown him.

So much for being safe. If she has the clap then Ben will just have it too.

Over his head, she lets out a shuddering breath. A lick or two from him, and she lies down, scooting her hips to the edge of the table for him. He places her leg over his shoulder and goes to town. He licks her up, circles her hole with the point of his tongue, fucks her with it until she starts getting loud and wriggling. Then he sucks on her clit, licking it until she is chanting his name and her hands are gathering fistfuls of his hair.

He makes her come good and long and hard, until her scream breaks, too high for her throat. Only then does he let up and lean back, his eyes hooded and satisfied as he wipes her off his mouth and chin. She lays splayed in front of him for a few moments, panting and staring at the ceiling. He moves her leg out of the way so he can get out of the booth and stand, and picks her shorts up off the floor. Before he gives them to her, he takes in her stunned expression, and when she looks over at him, the same questions are in her eyes that he’d had (Why? Why had he done that?). He fidgets nervously. He makes a hasty decision, and bends over her to press a kiss to her quivering belly. When he stands up, the confusion has been replaced by something soft, and he holds her shorts out for her to take.

She pulls them on and sits up, and he hands her down from the table.

She thanks him gently. “Can I sleep upstairs?” she asks, tucking her hair behind her ear, looking at his boots.

He nods.

That night, his back is pressed to the cold wall as they both try to fit on his single cot. The blanket is not big enough to cover them both, and as he lies on his side, he turns it into more of a tent. They’re both in their underwear, and a little awkward. Somehow his hand always ends up touching her breast, and he has to keep pulling it away. He tries to keep his stump from touching her at all, but he’s never caught her looking at it, and she’s never commented. She seems to just accept it, though she did pet the mottled scaring on that side of his stomach, and the black blur where his tattoo got melted off.

She tries to be polite and give him space, but the cot sinks in the middle, so it doesn’t take them long to admit defeat and Rey turns so he can spoon her. She won’t curl up into that tight little ball tonight, he thinks. He’ll keep her warm.

From then on, when she hustles it feels like a team effort. When she looks at him, he gives her a nod. He still can’t smile yet.

They talk.

A week and a half later, two men walk in, one black, one Hispanic. Rey squeals and jumps into their arms. Ben watches from the bar. She introduces them to her as Finn and Poe, the friends she was waiting for. Ben watches the three of them play pool, laughing. He’s worried, until she sees them off at the end of the night and sleeps in his cot like normal.

The next night, Finn sits at the bar and talks to Ben for almost three hours. It turns out he was in the military too, an infantryman. Ben mostly nods along, but he does speak sometimes as Finn talks about being deployed, what he misses and what he doesn’t, and how hard it was to come back and be a civilian again. It helps.

Over the next few weeks, Ben also sees Poe speaking to Lando a lot, and Ben understands Rey’s friends might be in the same line of work as his boss. He doesn’t care, since whatever they discuss puts Lando over the moon.

But Finn and Poe’s presence means Rey can’t hustle anymore. She can’t work the room if her friends are in it. There are little signs that her money is running low, though she never says anything. Ben worries about it. He doesn’t want her to go hungry or have to move on.

So he asks Lando to make her a bartender. He argues that a pretty girl behind the bar will sell drinks better than his surly amputee ass, and Lando is forced to concede on that point, so starting on Fridays and Saturdays, Rey joins him slinging drinks. She dresses sexy and lends the place a _Coyote Ugly_ -type mania, exciting and wild and fun. Sometimes she gets on the bar to dance, sometimes she sings. This gives Lando the idea to hire a house band, and business skyrockets. Ben teaches her to make a martini with one hand, and toss bottles without dropping them, and Rey plays with his hair, and tells him showing a little cleavage would get him more tips.

 _That_ makes him smile.


End file.
